Anders Walker, an Associate Dean at the Saint Louis University School of Law, has posted a scathing -- and somewhat personal -- indictment of Brian Tamanaha's book, Failing Law Schools. Tamanaha has already responded to the personal element of Walker's attack, and Walker has fired back. (Hat tip to TaxProf on all three posts)

Here, I want to focus on a different element of Walker's posts: The way he uses scholarship as a smokescreen to avoid talking directly about the problem of law school tuition. ... We don't need to save legal history or rescue legal scholarship. I learned from great legal scholars in the 1970s, and my school offered several legal history electives, all at a fraction of today's tuition costs. I'm confident we can cut tuition while preserving plenty of scholarship and interdisciplinary courses; surely we're as talented, frugal, and hard working as professors of earlier generations. We can also have long, interesting discussions with practitioners about the relative proportions of doctrinal, interdisciplinary, and practice-oriented courses we should offer students.

But first we have to confront the economic crisis saddling our graduates: Ignoring that crisis has been irresponsible. We have already graduated years of students with too much debt and too few job prospects. Save our students first; then we can worry about legal history.

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Comments

Again with the nonsense.

Is DJM simply incapable of honestly looking at the data and understanding what it means? There is no crisis in law. We're doing better than most fields in a recession, just not as well as we were back in 2007.

The *unemployment rate* for lawyers and law grads is much lower than the unemployment rate for workers with only a bachelor's degree and for recent college graduates in liberal arts fields. And the median and mean income for lawyers are much higher.

Because unemployment rates for those who have attended law school are lower than unemployment rates for comparable individuals who have not, the data suggest that attending law school reduces the risk of unemployment. The argument that attending law school causes unemployment or increases the risk of unemployment is implausible.

Default rates for law grads are lower than overall student loan default rats. The same debt repayment options that apply to law grads apply to other educational programs, so the default rate data should be comparable. IBR and extended repayment can't explain the low student loan default rates of law grads *relative* to those of students in other programs. If anything, the default rates for law students should be higher, because they are less likely than undergraduates to enter deferment by continuing their education.

DJM has yet to respond to this in any intelligible way. Same for Tamanaha. To his credit, Campos has actually acknowledged that law school is many people's best option because the economy is even worse elsewhere.

Census Bureau data on unemployment rates for those with professional degrees--not just those working as professionals--shows that the unemployment rates are much lower than for bachelors degrees and labor force participation rates are higher.

There is no crisis, but if we really want to give our students an advantage, we can increase the value of a law degree further by replacing the DJMs of the world with tax or other business law faculty--people who can teach things that high paying employers value.

Here's what I think may be happening.

DJM may genuinely feel guilty because *her* students--the ones who study poverty law--go on to make next to nothing, while she earns $200K+ per year.

However, business law faculty routinely see their former students go on to make more money than the business law professors. Almost all of us know we are paid less than people who do similar work outside academe, while the DJM's are paid far more than they would make anywhere else.

Same for Tamanaha and Campos. They know *their* students are struggling. They know that *they* are not capable of helping them. The only solution they can see is to cut the price.

The rest of us see our students succeed, make plenty of money, think there is no crisis, and think we're in fact underpaid. The data is on our side, but the scam bloggers are no doubt overwhelmed by their own personal experiences.

So lets make everyone happy. DJM & Co. can take pay cuts. We can use the money to increase resources for business law faculty and career placement.

The value of the law degree goes up, student employment prospects improve, costs stay the same, and everyone can get paid around what they think they are worth.

DJM can stop compulsively blogging out of a sense of guilt or a pathological desire for attention. She can spend some time educating those students she claims to care so much about and finding them jobs in poverty law, while explaining IBR to them.

Posted by: Anon | Aug 22, 2012 11:44:40 AM

Better yet, let's improve life for everybody and simplify the tax law and regulatory environment and put all those business law grads out of a job along with all the poverty lawyers....

Posted by: fiona | Aug 23, 2012 5:17:58 AM

"The data is on our side, but the scam bloggers are no doubt overwhelmed by their own personal experiences."

Yeah, and who bears responsibility for the terrible personal experiences that happen to people whose lives are now ruined by debt? I think Mr. Anon, above, feels blameless. It oozes out of his post, his lack of concern for the overwhelming experiences he is writing about. But he's probably a real part of the problem.

What role, what contribution, did that anonymous poster have in the terrible experiences that have hit so many law school grads? Did he counsel poor students to quit law school? Did he confront his dean about the amount of debt students are taking on.

Deborah Jones Merritt has my respect. She is at least concerned about students and has a working conscience. The Anon above does not. His theory is "We're in the right--too bad those people over there, those stupid former law students we taught, are suffering." Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Posted by: Lowellguy | Aug 23, 2012 7:38:59 AM

"The data is on our side."

Ha. Anon sounds like a national Association of Realtors Economist circa 2007.

Posted by: terry malloy | Aug 23, 2012 7:58:15 AM

Wow! I didn't realize that some profs ["Anon"] were mind and heart readers. Is his/her nickname "The Shadow"? ["Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts . . ."]

I'm sure all those law grads struggling to pay crushing student loan debt will feel gobs better if they just read the above comment. "No crisis" indeed. [Captain of Titanic to passengers just after hitting huge iceberg: "Don't worry, folks! There's no crisis! We've just stopped temporarily to take on some more ice."]

Posted by: JorgXMckie | Aug 23, 2012 8:33:45 AM

Anon, where do you teach? Because if it isn't the top 10 or so schools, than your students aren't doing so well in "business law" (whatever the hell that means) regardless of how many Corporations, Advanced Corporations, Advanced Corporations: Mergers and Acquisitions, etc, classes you offer.

Also, please describe to me the hiring process for a typical "business law firm" because I'm pretty sure you don't understand it. Let's start with "what is OCI and when does it occur on the law school timeline."

Posted by: BoredJD | Aug 23, 2012 1:50:39 PM

Anon - this is the internet, post direct links when you make factual allegations that run distinctly counter to published data that contradicts your happy-talk BS

It clearly indicates that the vast majority of law schools provide employment results that in no way justify their ever more absurd tuitions (from which, I suspect, you profit).

I'm sure you have a bucketful of excuses for why the ABA data (generated, at long last, 17 *years* into the internet era) should be ignored - put up or shut up and *link* to the data that you allege justifies legal academia's financial and employment claims.

I'm quite sure that most of your sources will be as self-serving as you, but by linking to them, *they can be objectively analyzed".

Posted by: cas127 | Aug 23, 2012 1:57:36 PM

"Yeah, and who bears responsibility for the terrible personal experiences that happen to people whose lives are now ruined by debt?"

Being a little melodramatic, aren't we? Between Income based repayment for federal student loans, extended repayment plans, and the availability of undue hardship discharge in bankruptcy, it's highly unlikely that anyone's life was "ruined" by debt. Worst case scenario, they have 10% less income than they would have had without law school for 10 to 25 years.

Typical scenario, they start out making around $60 to $80K per year (which is $30K to $40K more than they would have typically made with just a liberal arts degree) and eventually get up to $100K to $130K per year (which is $50K to $80K more than they would have eventually earned with just a liberal arts degree).

But since you ask about who bears the risk, it's called "investing." There's always some element of risk. Most people benefit greatly from a legal education. For those who don't, IBR and bankruptcy limit the downside. The risk is shared between the student and the lender.

If you're not willing to take any risks in life, I'm not really sure how you're going to function. You can never eat anything outside the house--might get food poisoning. You can never cross the street--might get hit by a car. You can never drive--might get into an accident. You can never have a romantic relationship--might catch a disease.

There are stupid risks, like playing Russian Roulette. Law school is a smart risk.

There are good reasons the students should bear the risk, because the students make all kinds of decisions--whether to go to law school, which law school to go to, how hard to study, which classes to take, whether to work at an internship.

And going to a law school with proximity to a major legal market (New York, D.C., L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Houston (if you want to do Energy law), etc. so they can work internships while in school.

Going to a non-top 50 placement school in Ohio (where DJM teaches) might not be the sharpest move. Or say a non top 50 placement school in the Colorado (and not even Denver!) (where Campos teaches).

Students can also research which schools have faculty members with big firm experience, and which schools house the best business law scholars. Students also have control over how hard they study, whether they pay attention in class, and which classes they take.

Show me a law grad who can't find a job or open their own law practice and I'll show you someone who:

Does someone need to sit the students down and explain to them that Brian Tamanaha's "Jurisprudence" and "Comparative Law" classes and Paul Campos's "Punishment Theory" and "Legal Interpretation and Legislative Process" class won't help them get jobs? Or that they won't make very much money if they take all DMJ criminal law classes and end up working as a public defender?

The scam blogger professors (Campos, Tamanaha, DMJ) need to spend a few years teaching nothing but tax classes (federal income, partnership, corporate, non-profits, state & local, etc.) and then see if they still:

1) Think that they are overpaid
2) Are worried about their students getting jobs

Try seeing how business law faculty work hard and help their students and sacrifice, and then maybe you scam bloggers will have something to say that is worth us paying attention to.

Posted by: Anon | Aug 23, 2012 3:22:48 PM

This data actually confirms everything I said.

It shows that at graduation or shortly thereafter ~85% were employed and only ~9% were unemployed. These statistics compare very favorably to recent college graduates with liberal arts degrees, who in turn have lower unemployment rates and higher incomes than high school graduates of the same age.

And 2011 was one of the worst years in the last decade for law graduates.

Employment at or shortly after graduation in one single year for one class-2011--in a time of recession--doesn't suggest that a law degree ins't valuable. To the contrary, it suggests that those with law degrees do better than those without, even in a rough economy.

If you look at the census bureau data, which tracks people over a lifetime, and over many years, it's clear that lawyers (and those with law degrees) have been doing very well for a very long time.

Posted by: Anon | Aug 23, 2012 5:16:27 PM

"BoredJD" writes:

"Also, please describe to me the hiring process for a typical "business law firm" because I'm pretty sure you don't understand it. Let's start with 'what is OCI and when does it occur on the law school timeline.'"

Has no one ever explained to you that there are ways to get a job other than through OCI? Do you think the jobs are all going to come directly to you, and all you have to do is roll out of bed, put on a suit, and show up?

Get an internship. Volunteer if you have to. Go to industry conferences and meet people who can give you leads or hire you. Write articles that will get you noticed. Or if that fails, start your own law firm and find some clients.

If you've followed my advice and gone to law school in close geographic proximity to a major legal market, this should be easy to execute. If you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with DJM or Paul Campos . . .

Whose fault is it that you decided to go to law school in the middle of nowhere?

Posted by: Anon | Aug 23, 2012 5:54:14 PM

Anon, The ABA employment data are for 9 months after graduation, not "at graduation or shortly thereafter." Nine months after graduation, 9% of law graduates had no job at all--not even babysitting. Only 55% had a full-time job requiring bar admission that would last at least a year. That category includes all judicial clerkships and one-year fellowships; those are considered "one-year" jobs even if they last less than a year.

Other law graduates held part-time jobs, temp jobs, or jobs that did not require a law degree. For many of the latter jobs, there is little hard evidence that the JD conferred any advantage in obtaining the job.

The 52% is not a random sample; it is a voluntary sample compounded by selective additions by the law schools. It is very well accepted that, for these particular figures, almost all unreported salaries fall below the median. That's because part-time and short-term jobs aren't counted at all for salary purposes (and they are very unlikely to pay more than the median); graduates are more likely to report high salaries than low ones; and career services offices can fill in unreported salaries if they are available from another source (true of higher-paid firm jobs, not other jobs).

So $60,000 is the best possible number you could give for an average graduate, not "$60-80,000." And almost everyone would agree that, with only 52% reporting, that $60,000 is more like the 75th percentile than the median.

Do you teach securities law? What result if a company reported in its prospectus that a relevant number was "around $60k-80K per year" when the actual number was $60K--and even that was the product of skewed accounting? And what result if a company said a product would be available "on May 15 or shortly thereafter" and the company knew the product would not be available until the following Feb 15 (nine months later)?

By the way, I have also taught patent law and statistics for lawyers; happy to talk numbers with you any time. But I'm going to do the rest of my talking over on ITLSSB--more people read those posts than these comments.

$60K is the median. $80K is the mean. $60K to $80K is therefore an appropriate range for the "typical" outcome since either mean or median can be used as a measure of central tendency. This is Statistics 101. Come on DJM. You've taught statistics for lawyers.

"It is very well accepted . . ."

How do you know the selection bias runs in a particular direction? Have you tracked down a representative sample of people who law schools couldn't track down and determined definitively that those who are working but did not report earn less than those who reported? The exact same selection bias issues apply to the salaries of undergraduate liberal arts majors, so none of this affects the wage premium (the difference in wages) between those with law degrees and those without.

The issue isn't how much people make. It's how much *more* people make with a law degree than they would have made without the law degree.

And if you're concerned about the law schools playing games with the data, just use the Census and BLS data for long term outcomes, which show those with law degrees doing very well.

Anon, I'm going to explain to you as simply as possible. Less than 55% of the c/o 2011 had legal jobs nine months after graduation. You keep harping about "business law" like it is some magic field that is going to save everyone from unemployment as long as they are smart enough to see how valuable it is. I've asked you repeatedly to give me information on this supposed boon in hiring in "business law" and despite supposedly being an expert in the field, you've failed.

Please list all the F500 companies that hire recent graduates for entry-level in-house legal positions in "business law" and link to postings. I can do so on one-hand (one-finger for companies with non-IP required backgrounds), but maybe your expertise in "business law" could help us there. Industry conferences, that is too funny.

Again, the "internships" in "business law" are called Summer Associate positions. They are available through On Campus Interviews, a job fair that your supposed students participate in after their first-year.

Okay, I'd like to start up a solo law firm. First thing I need is clients. How can I get clients? I could talk to people. Wait, nobody wants to hire an entry-level lawyer with no experience! Well, I need an ad campaign, since there are dozens of more experienced lawyers with ad budget. I need an office, legal research tools, equipment, a computer, filing fees. I need to eat and pay my loans until I can get a client inflow. Oops, I don't have any money. So off to the bank for a loan. What's that you say? You don't want to loan someone with $130,000 in priority student loan debt and no experience money to start a small business? But law school taught me that loan money was freely available even when substantial risk was involved!

Posted by: BoredJD | Aug 24, 2012 8:17:37 AM

Wrong. 55% is *full time* *permanent* jobs that *required* a JD, which excludes many great non-permanent jobs (clerkships), and many great jobs that don't require a JD (business, politics / government), etc. ~85% had jobs, and only 2% were in "nonprofessional" jobs. Only 9% were unemployed.

This is much better performance than recent grads from undergraduate liberal arts programs. And the median and mean incomes for law grads are substantially higher, and the student loan default rates are substantially lower.

"Please list all the F500 companies that hire recent graduates for entry-level in-house legal positions in "business law" and link to postings."

Do your own research, or ask your professors or law school career services office. I'll certainly share this information with my students--who I respect and care about--but you're going to have to dance with the one that brought you. You see, you haven't paid any tuition to my law school, and when I provide value, I expect to be compensated for it.

Of course, F500 companies aren't the only good employers out there, so maybe you need to broaden your search.

"the 'internships' in 'business law' are called Summer Associate positions"

No, there are internships during the school year as well. If you didn't seek them out, whose fault is that?

"How can I get clients?"

You can find clients on the cheap if you know where and how to look. I explain how to do this to my students, but since you're not one of them you'll have to find someone else to explain it to you.

You don't need an office, you can practice out of your living room and meet clients in public places. You don't need any tools or equipment other than your computer (which you already have), an internet connection, alumni access to your law library, a kinkos card, and a bus pas. Get an a la carte plan for Lexis or Westlaw and bill to the clients when you find them. Obviously, you should always insist on retainer before you do any work.

I've just given you more help than DJM, Paul Campos, Brian Tamanaha, Herwig Schlunk, and Jim Chen put together.

But I guess they are the ones who really care about the students--since they spend so much time blogging--and all I care about is myself.

Quit reading and writing on the scam blogs, Bored JD. You won't find a single client that way.

Posted by: Anon | Aug 24, 2012 10:29:58 AM

Anon, the "mean" you are referring to is $78,653, not $80,000. I'm not a tax or business professor, but I don't think the IRS or SEC are amused when someone engages in that type of rounding. "I had $78,653 in business expenses--I'll deduct a round $80,000!"

But that's a minor point. Even NALP doesn't use the $78,653 figure (other than reporting it among other raw numbers), because they acknowledge that the selection bias is so severe. NALP calculates an adjusted mean to account for some of the bias. For the class of 2011, the adjusted mean is $73,984. See the graph on this page: http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib.

And when you're looking at that graph, you'll see why it's statistically incorrect to say that the "average graduate" has an outcome between the median and the mean. That's true for some distributions, but not all: You've got to look at the shape of the distribution. (That's Statistics 202--things are a little more complicated than they teach in that 101 course.) For a bimodal distribution, neither the mean nor the median is particularly informative--and it's particularly misleading to look at the area between them.

People knowledgeable about the business of law have understood that bimodal distribution--and written about it--since Bill Henderson first published on the issue a few years ago. You either are unfamiliar with that work or are deliberately ignoring it. If you hold yourself out as an expert on these issues, as you seem to do here, I'd be careful about that.

I have looked at *all* the grads from my school with unreported salaries--not just a random sample. You can do the same with the grads for your school; I think you will find it very instructive. Unless you are from Cooley, which loses track of a truly alarming number of graduates, your law school knows the employment status and (if employed) job title, employer, and PT/FT status for almost every grad. Ask your dean's office to give you a list of the jobs and employers of students who didn't report salaries. They can leave the students' names off; those aren't necessary. But be sure they include the unemployed students and the ones with part-time jobs. Go down the list and figure out how many of those jobs could possibly pay more than $60,000. I think you will see the bias. This isn't speculative selection bias--this is a bias that NALP and others have tested very concretely. Again, people who are writing and analyzing this area are familiar with that.

If you have an economic interest in encouraging people to attend law school (e.g., if you draw your salary from a law school), I would be careful about making uninformed or misleading statements publicly--while claiming expertise in the area. The identity of "anonymous" internet users is discoverable in litigation. I'm certainly not going to sue you--I just enjoy correcting your errors now and then. But a prospective student who relied upon your representations here and later learned the truth might feel differently.

Anon, you just keep getting these facts wrong. The ABA and NALP specifically define clerkships as full-time, "permanent" jobs that require bar admission. Yes, those definitions are somewhat squirrelly, since there are clerks who take the bar exam after their clerkships, and clerkships are not "permanent" in the everyday sense of the term. But the definitions are heavily influenced by law school administrators.

It's bad enough that we use Humpty-Dumpty language in defining these categories--don't make it worse by misrepresenting what the categories mean. The 55% (56% by some computations) *includes* all clerkships. If you don't know the facts, don't represent them publicly.

Now you're just quibbling because you know you've lost the argument. And trying to intimidate me with litigation threats to boot. You're a real piece of work, DJM.

Your entire argument--that college grads are worse off with law school than without, that the debt burden is unsustainable--is wrong, and it doesn't make one bit of difference whether the mean starting salary in 2011 is $73,984, $78,653 or $80,000. Being overly precise is misleading. We know estimates from samples are never that precise (You've heard of a confidence interval? Or is that statistics 303?) Not to mention the fact that the numbers were higher in 2010 and 2009, etc., and a multi-year average is more reliable than a single data point if you're trying to forecast, especially in labor markets with cobweb cycles.

In fact, even if we use the $60K median--and I am rounding--a law degree more than pays for itself relative to the median for a liberal arts degree. And we can pick almost any point in the distribution--the 25th percentile of law graduates vs. the 25th percentile of liberal arts graduates with no grad school, the 10th percentile of each--and the law degree will still pay for itself, especially with IBR.

You keep talking about selection bias in law school data while ignoring other data sources and ignoring the fact that undergraduate salary surveys presumably have *THE SAME SELECTION BIAS* issues, so they cancel each other out and we can safely use the unadjusted reported figures to calculate the wage premium. Can you prove that there is no selection bias in reported undergraduate salaries? Do you think this is an issue unique to law schools?

Of course you are also placing undue emphasis on the starting salary and the distribution of starting salaries for a single, exceptionally bad year (2011)--while ignoring all of the historic data on both starting salaries and lifetime income streams. Have you checked salary distributions 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years out? Or do you think you can evaluate a law degree that will last 50-55 years (at current life expectancy for 25 year olds) based on a single year of data for a single cohort?

According to a recent Kaplan Survey, many, many college grads who go to law school never intend to practice law--they want to go into business or politics, and that's what they end up doing. But if you want to compare apples to apples, lets look at the percent of undergraduate liberal arts majors who are employed in a job that is closely related to what they studied. It's a lot lower than the percent of law graduates who end up in JD required or JD preferred jobs. As for your claim that "The ABA and NALP specifically define clerkships as full-time, "permanent" jobs that require bar admission"--even you admit they are often not going to be coded that way, so my argument remains correct, whatever the official definitions may say. But please, go ahead and link to the official definitions where you claim it says that, and point out exactly where.

And as for your references to securities law--

You do know that most investments--bank loans, commodities, real estate, partnership interests--are not regulated as securities, right? And that there are specific reasons why the scope of securities regulation is limited? And that a non-transferable law degree available only to "sophisticated" college graduates looks a whole lot more like the kinds of investment that don't fall under securities regulation than those that do? And that no court on earth is going to find that a law degree is a security? And that no court on earth is going to find that a law student "reasonably relied" on an anonymous blog post about general industry trends on a message board intended for tax professors (not for law students), or that anything I've said is substantially misleading?

I'm glad you're trying to track down data for Ohio State grads, but keep in mind, you're at one school, and it's not a strong performer. NLJ 250 does a great job tracking law grads who end up at big firms and *your school* (Ohio State) doesn't seem to be be doing nearly as well as would be expected based on US News and SSRN rankings.

So when you're on your disclosure kick, I hope you'll point out the NLJ250 top 50 law schools to your Ohio State students, let them know that Ohio State is over-rated by U.S. News, and suggest your students consider transferring to one of the top 50 NLJ 250 schools.

I hope you'll also let them know that there is very little money in criminal law and they'd be better off financially if they dropped your class and studied a business law subject.

If you really care about your students, don't you want them to have the best chance in life? Even if it means they go to a school other than Ohio State and study something other than what you have to teach?

Posted by: Anon | Aug 24, 2012 5:05:43 PM

Yes Anon, I'll just take your word for it. Despite the fact that when challenged you could not name ONE company that would hire entry-levels. (Not one). And you could not describe ONE way a novice lawyer could get clients. (Not one). Sorry, Anon, I think you're out of time here.

I am sorry you are so impotent in the face of market reality. Unfortunate, really.

Posted by: BoredJD | Aug 24, 2012 7:08:23 PM

BoredJD

You can triple dare me with a cherry on top and I still will not do your work for you for free or help you at the expense of my students. I was able to find dozens of mid-year legal internships with a google search that took me all of 30 seconds. I choose not to share that information, because it's not in my students' interest that I share it.

If you can't even do a simple google search . . . You've got a competence issue, not a market issue.

Posted by: Anon | Aug 24, 2012 7:55:33 PM

Oh you can find DOZENS of "internships" for your "students" yet you can't even answer simple questions about the market for "business law" or even what "business law" is.

BTW business law is a huge joke among law students. It's like saying you want to go into international law. A catch-all term used by 0Ls who don't know anything about those practice areas or the hiring market but think they'll look good in a suit.

Please name six F500 companies who hire recent graduates for full-time lawyer positions and provide links. They can even require IP background. If you can, I'll never post here again.

And just LOL at your suggestion a recent grad start their own firm (especially in "business law"). How many client matters have you handled? Even indigent criminals always ask "have you handled this type of case before?" Like anybody is going to be lining up at the door of someone who can't cite one representative matter they worked on.